No Hunger Games: Mobile Pantries

Published February 9th, 2014

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WILLISTON - The president is vowing to make 2014 a year of action, where no one is left behind as the economy recovers. This year president Obama launched a new anti-poverty program referred to as the, Promise Zone Initiative.

The zones chosen will receive extra resources. However, no city in Florida was selected to be part of the initiative-- at least not yet. That worries residents in the area who are going through tough times. One service here in north central florida continues to extend a hand to those in need, while on the move.

Rain or shine, more than one hundred people in Williston, stand in line. All of them with a number on hand, a number that will bring food to the table-- at least for the next few days. After waiting in line for a couple of hours, Lois Rayhart-- a resident in need, was given a cake... A cake she hopes to save for a special occasion in several months.

"I am going to freeze the cake, so i can have a birthday party on april the 12th," Rayhart said.

Sharon Bryant is also in the same situation and says most people don't understand. "Poverty is everywhere... People don't know because they don't live in our houses," Bryant said.

This is one of the many reasons, underprivileged residents like Barbara Thompson say they're left looking out for each other. "I know some people and I help out when I get it from here, I'll go to their house and give it to them cause I know this lady has a lot of kids and i'll go ahead and give them what i have cause I don't want to just get it all for myself," Thompson said.

She lives in Levy County where the poverty rate is about 23 percent. That's substantially higher than the state's average of almost 16 percent.

Loretta Griffis the Director of Community Outreach for Bread of the Mighty Food Bank said, "What we do is that sometimes we get so much produce and stuff in that the normal agencies cannot handle it... So marcia came up with the idea-- marcia is the director of the food bank, came up with the idea of doing mobile pantries."

The Bread of the Mighty Food Bank tries to host mobile pantries every month for the counties of North Central Florida. The one in Williston is one of the largest.

The Ornan Masonic Lodge allows the mobile pantry to happen here on the second Thursday of every month-- they do so at no cost. Everybody that comes in gets a ticket and everybody that goes through the line gets a bag of meat, a bag of produce and bag of bread. If there's enough supply, residents are allowed to make the line twice. "We just need to watch, if all of the sudden we get an influx of people around noon-- that we're going to have enough to cover," Griffis said.

The mobile pantries are a faster way to help move food-- especially fresh items like produce. During their last fiscal year, the bread of the mighty food bank served over 6 million pounds to the needy. This year they hope to distribute somewhere between 8 and 10 million.

Griffis said, "We're one of the ministries you would call it, that we'd really like to go out of business. That there's no hunger, that they won't need us. But right now it's not that way." Griffis says this is a challenge that unites us all.

In the meantime, Rayhart's cake awaits in the freezer-- until things get a little better. "They're doing a wonderful job for the people, I think it can't be any better than this," Ravhart said.

The next mobile pantry in Williston will take place February 13th at the the Ornan Masonic Lodge.